August 10, 2016

A Dog

By Tony Brown

I’ve woken up today
wondering why
I am not a dog, because

if I were a dog
I’d be a good one.
Especially if

I woke up as a dog with 
all my memories
of being human.

Damn, I’d say,
at last a chance 
to bite back or sleep

with a wiggling leg
or enjoy a fine scratch —
and a shortish lifespan

to boot, nothing like
these interminable
days as a man with all the

unnecessary expectations
and frowns from other men.
If I were a dog

I’d be cool with other dogs.
I might be neutered or left
intact — either way

I’d be fine.  I’d figure it out
or more likely would just
be a dog without figuring.

I figure too much as it is.
If I were to wake up a dog
I’d remember that,

and head right back into sleep
with all my legs spread wide
and my tongue out and 

it would be just fine. Sunshine
on my belly, and food in the bowl;
if I were a dog, I’d be just fine.

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August 8, 2016

Art And Fear

By Tony Brown

Originally posted 8/7/2012.

Under one of the caskets 
in the spare room I find
a book I’d forgotten buying,
a book titled Art And Fear.

I suspect
being under a casket for a few years
has made it a better book.
It smells like it soaked up
a little something while under there
and I think that makes it far more credible.

This is the part where you ask
about the casket.

This is the part where you ask
why I moved the casket.

This is the part where you realize
I used the plural, “caskets.”

This is the part where you hear an owl
in the distance and cannot tell
if it’s in the poem,
the yard,
or the next room;

this is the part
where you stay awake
long after you should be asleep.

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August 8, 2016

One Hustle

By Tony Brown

My spine’s 
snake-curved and achy
after a bad night 
on an old mattress.

If someone saw me
from outside and didn’t
know this, they’d say
my walk to the bathroom
seems so casual, so slow;

don’t be fooled.
My pace has less to do with
urgency and more to do with
inability to hustle right now.

Coffee, then Aleve,
and then to work.
It’s a routine, a job,
one hustle I can maintain
and must maintain
and do maintain

as all the rest of my hustle
falls out of me
onto these hard floors
without so much as 
a bounce.  

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August 7, 2016

Used Records

By Tony Brown

I have owned
and discarded
so much I’m finding again here;
little of it
do I care to own again,

but upon raising from its place
a copy of — well, you don’t need that
information or why it’s important —

upon
raising it,
how swiftly I recall

the ritual of slipping
this exact beloved
out, laying on a light finger
for a subtle 
check of its nature, balanced
and spun upon a single finger
to test for warp and curve;

remembering how
I used to live that way

and though I am no
current cult audiophile, prefer
CDs and files to such 
stacks and stacks, 
upon considering

the green-gray dust 
in the crease
of this gatefold album,

thinking of 
nearly forgotten 
all nighters and then seeing

on this otherwise
pristine jacket
ball-pointed writing,

“property of Stan,” I
of course must
buy it,

all the while hating
Stan,

wherever he is now,
whoever he is
or once was.

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August 6, 2016

A Country Of Sick Men

By Tony Brown

Originally posted August 28, 2013.

Comb-overs, wars,
long nosed cars, long reach guns, 
filibusters, weaponized God, hangings,
unfortunate colognes, blood feasts,
casual seizing of women, of children,
of other men, shared ignorance
of lack of consent;

leveraged buyouts,
wolf pelts, blessing of
radioactive oceans,
balls of old oil
in the bellies of seals;

blank-eyed drooling
in rooms full of vintage guitars
and game balls,
blackout drunks,
hard-engine bikes:

all the exquisite arts of suicide and genocide.

I was born there, live there mostly,
certainly will die there,
will die of being there.

There are women there too.
Some of them are sick too
but mostly, I think, they are sick
of the sick men.
They have stories to tell
but if you want to hear those
don’t ask me to tell them.
My tongue’s more than a little sick.
You can smell it a little
or a lot.  I know I can smell it
every time I speak.
To hear those stories,
get away from me,
get into clean air,
go to the source,
listen.

It will seem then

like a different country. 

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August 6, 2016

What It Will Take

By Tony Brown

It will certainly not take
another poem, 
or comment thread, 

or hand-wrung tear 
of dim empathy 
from me.  

It may take nothing
from me, in fact,
except surrender

of whatever I have that 
is only mine to offer:
my reserved place in line,

my nodding acceptance of it,
my learned willingness
to get along

by going along. 
My fear-frozen tongue.
My centrality.

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August 5, 2016

As If By Invisible Hands

By Tony Brown

I woke up today
face down
in a roasted chicken. 

The evidence around me
suggested that I may have
slaughtered, cleaned,
and cooked it here
in the backyard

while I slept,
as I did not
recall any
of this bloody
and brutal work.  

I wiped my face,
grabbed a leg and thigh
and went inside
to find

hides in various stages
of dressing and tanning, 
thin hint of blood,
buckets of guts and hair,
tools I did not know I owned
strewn on the kitchen table,

and again, recalled nothing
of this hard labor; didn’t ache
in strange places, was not
at all tired, could find not one speck
of gore upon me —

so I turned from all this
and sat down
upon my couch
and turned on the TV

for stories of slayer drones and 
the machinations of money men,
tales of police killings and 
poisoned water, go-slow language
for urgent issues — all else

that happened while I slept
and could not feel any pain
or fatigue for having done.

Well fed, clothed
as if by magic, 
as if by invisible hands,

I am still sitting here
with only a vague sense
that I should 
hurt.

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August 4, 2016

NEW BOOK is out!

By Tony Brown

I rarely publish my work except in odd anthologies and the occasional journal; this blog usually answers the need for me.  Once in a while, though, I pull together a group of somewhat related poems and find a way to get them out as a self-contained chapbook.

My latest effort like this, “In The Embers,” is freshly out from Tired Hearts Press.

I’m extremely proud of this collection, and the publishers did a more than fine job of creating a beautiful chapbook to showcase it.  It’s lovely to look at and hold and read.  

At the moment, the book is not yet available on their Website but will be shortly.  When it is, I strongly encourage you to buy it from them.  The press has a tradition of contributing a portion of sales to organizations that work on suicide prevention, and that’s a cause I strongly support — in fact, it’s another reason I submitted the manuscript to their contest in the first place. I’ve asked that ALL net proceeds from their sales be contributed to such efforts, and they’ve agreed.

I’ll keep you posted about its availability, but here’s the link to save if you’re so inclined : http://tiredhearts.storenvy.com/collections/163836-individual-titles

Many thanks in advance to all of you who purchase it.

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August 4, 2016

Use Your Imagination

By Tony Brown

They did not imagine
back when they began
that we would still be here
this deep into the future.

It was a failure of imagination by those
who have always exaggerated 
how much imagination
they actually have.

They always believed
that the future was theirs
to corral and segregate,
that they would own the walls

and floors and doors
and locks and bars
forever. They built that way,
they taught that way,

they thought that way
was the only way. Their way
was the highway.  They thought
we would always be

like pavement: underfoot,
smooth, forgettable
as any other necessity
someone stole long ago.

Now that their pavement is
breaking, now that
the roots they thought
they had killed

are pushing hard new life
through it toward the light,
they dare to ask:
who are you to break

so much, block the journey,
question the wholeness
of us?  We respond:
use your imagination,

what did you think would happen?
And when they say nothing to that
and bring out the stale old weapons
and the antique crushing weights

and we rise in spite
of all that and they
are astonished, saddened, cooing
and cajoling and saying there, there,

calm down,
don’t be like that, we say:
use your imagination.
What do you think is going to happen

now? And when they stand there
on their broken ground amid 
their shattered walls and locks
and doors burst open and held open

by the swift and violent greening
of our resurgence, when they say
what now, we will not speak. We will shrug
and turn our imaginations elsewhere.

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August 2, 2016

Flow

By Tony Brown

1.
When I saw you first
I did not understand 
what to make of you

When I realized
it wasn’t my job
to do any making
I began to love you

When I loved you first
all I could think of
was building us a boat
and sailing away to
somewhere easier 

As if there is anywhere easier
than on the sea itself 
to learn love 

How it tosses you
How it can swallow you
in the moment
of its greatest beauty

How all of us are swallowed
by the same sea

2.
It should not be as hard
to be ourselves in safety
as we make it for each other

It ought to be simple to flow
with what you feel you are
and let others flow

unquestioned
unchallenged
and unafraid

It should not be so hard
to step away from how
we’ve always funneled

each other’s identities
into such narrow
chutes and sluices

Listen to the crash and grind
That current pushing against
the walls we built to create it

We are drowning
trying to navigate the complexity 
we created

when it ought to be as simple
as you flow as you flow
and I will flow as I flow

cutting our natural beds 
into this good earth
Perhaps we’ll meet along the way

or perhaps not
but all flow goes to the sea eventually
All who flow go into the same sea

3.
It’s not my place
to build against your flow

as it is not yours
to build against mine

As it is not our place
to stem any flow

No matter that we
act as if it were our place

As if any flow could be stopped
forever

As if all flow 
doesn’t end up

swallowed
in the same sea

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August 1, 2016

Song For A Snake To Hum

By Tony Brown

Originally posted 6/5/2005.  From comments on the original post, I’m pretty sure I was in Orlando FL at the time I wrote this. Probably a business trip back in those days.  Not that it matters.

there are places like this
there have always been places 
just like this
where snakes
hold their tails in their mouths

you’d think that people seeing them
would stop pretending that
there is no proof
that every beginning 
contains its end

but people keep saying
if it happened
where’s the proof
that it happened

a snake eating
its own tail?
seems that would be
enough proof

but what happens
is that people
not trusting that what happens
happens and happens
again and again
not trusting those who tell them
that what happens happens
and happens again
and again
demand plural immediate unshakeable proofs
and though such things are common
any wait at all
allows them to forget and deny
that it ever happened

now we are here and
here’s another snake
reaching around himself
his tail wet from 
poison mouth

this is how things end and begin

how it happens
and happens and happens
again and again

this is a song for a snake to hum
as it waits patiently
for lessons to be learned
and things to stop happening
again and again and again

so it can stop biting its own tail
so it can stop dying

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August 1, 2016

Bucket List

By Tony Brown

I find a small notebook
at a yard sale table.

A sheet falls out, words
at the top: “Bucket List.”

I note check marks in front of
“visit Europe,” “go deep sea fishing,”

“climb Twin Mountain.”  Left unchecked:
“learn to dance the tarantelle,” “complete

master’s degree,” “reconcile
with Marie.” There are others 

as well but I note only the last item,
and the check before it:

“go back and kill
the rest of those bastards.”

I ask the seller
where she got the notebook and

she says it was her father’s,
was in his effects when he died. She’s

come North to handle his estate
and these items today

are the last things to be sold
before she goes home.  

I do not ask if she’d looked through
that book before selling.

I do not ask her name.
I do not ask how her father died.

I tuck the sheet back into 
the notebook and offer her

a price for it as a lot with 
a pair of worn leather belts

and a box of shot glasses
from various tourist spots. 

She agrees
and I take it all home.  

I lay that book in my firepit
and turn it into ash.

Then
I call my father.

We talk for a long time
and make peace between us.

I cannot sleep tonight.
I pour shots into 

Niagara Falls and
Carlsbad Cavern glasses,

wondering who
the bastards were and if

they still walk the earth,
if their children understand

and love them, or are they
childless, or alone now,

writing fearful words
in small notebooks

no one else
is ever supposed to see.

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July 31, 2016

Bouquet

By Tony Brown

Originally posted 3/22/2007, though written well before that.

The brain
knows many things.
Some of them you know,
some you do not.

If the brain
was a flower,
you would be
its scent.

Perhaps
the brain is a
flower, starving
for light, lunging
through the eyes,
seeking nourishment.

If you plucked
your brain out
and held it to the light,
would you have a mind?

The mind lives
in the brain and
hides in its petals.
The mind is the dark
among the riots of color.

You sleep
as the brain tends to the mind.
They talk all night,
pretending they are
you. In the morning
you are nearly mad
from the echoes of their
conversation.

Put your hands
around your mind
and know it’s not
part of the scheme
that you should understand
everything: there are things
shoring up the partners
that would terrify you
if you knew them.

The brain blooms
long after you close your eyes.
The mind rises from its nooks and folds
to escape, moving past you,
playing in the meadows.

The mind drifts back
in the hot late afternoon.
Your head grows heavy
with pollen. You open your mouth
and bees fly in
to take their fill while the mind
avoids being stung
by the danger in the commerce.

When you sleep
the mind and brain bear ideas.
You pretend they are your own fruit.
The brain laughs at you. The mind
strokes you softly, saying,
“There, there…”

You are the scent.
Something plucks your brain
and you die slowly. Maybe
another brain and another mind
recall you for a while, but
you’ll certainly fade.

Anything
fed long enough
on vision, scent, touch,
sound, taste will double back
on its own surety.

The brain
makes you sleepy. The mind
makes you frightened. You
make yourself believe
there are reasons for everything.

A night blooming flower
holds its beauty
until first light, collapsing
at the first touch of your hand,
staining your memory
with a scent you never can
describe.

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July 29, 2016

Dig These Cozy Homes

By Tony Brown

Dig these cozy homes
hiding lockboxes full 
of dark

these thick lawns seething
with maggots from bodies
underneath

those smiles with those teeth
flecked in new flesh red
and old bone brown

Dig unmitigated miles of this 
Dig them wrong or right but 
there for sure and certain

of staying put 
no matter what happens
Dig their home security signs

in their politely policed windows
Dig facade voices
turned up full blast to drown out

their pet ghosts
squeaking
in their lockboxes

those sounds
of chewing
from below their feet 

Dig
now
history 

Dig history saying
Ha and 
HeeHee and HoHo

Dig history
with keys in hand
and a shovel

Dig history
handing them to you
Dig history saying

Put up or shut up
Shut them down
Dig

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July 28, 2016

Not All Homicides Are Crimes

By Tony Brown

“To begin with, not all
homicides are crimes.” That’s 
the first sentence I find
when I look up the word
in a legal reference source. “Not all
homicides are crimes.”  Legally

if a person dies at the hand
of another, that’s a homicide and
then a decision must be made
by some lawyer somewhere
about what to do next —

they look
at the body and begin:
this one’s a victim,
this one’s not a victim,
this one deserved it,
this one did not,
this one’s a murder, 
this one’s a manslaughter,
this one, this one, this one…

plucking petals
from bouquets of daisies
laid upon a coffin.

Even if they land 
on there having been a crime,

hoops must then be jumped through
to get to what is called justice:
the hoops are sometimes huge
and hung low
and easy to step through
and the lawyers practically skip on through
and the killer or killers are dragged on through
and there’s a trial
and some one pays, or doesn’t.  

Sometimes, though,

the hoops are small, 
are hung high in the air,
are greasy with lighter fluid  — and swiftly
the flames rise from them
and no one dares to jump through
the hoops or the flames;

the killer or killers
turn from victimizer to victim
and the victim turns
from victim to slug or thug 
and everyone involved bemoans
unfortunate presence in wrong place at wrong time
and sometimes they even call the killer
dutiful servant
or hero.

“Not all homicides are crimes.”
It all depends 
on who hangs the hoops 
and who has to jump through them.

Meanwhile, the petals
that were counted to decide
whether and how the hoops
would be hung 
remain where they fall
on the graves until the wind

pickes them up. They collect
in odd corners in towns named
Ferguson and Baltimore and Baton Rouge
and Winslow and Worcester and 
New York and Oakland
and oh, pretty much

everywhere.  They collect
and decay.  They’ve become sticky
and we are slipping upon them. There are so
many underfoot we can’t help but fall soon,

and if we crack open upon landing,
if we die, will that be
homicide
or accident
or perhaps act of God —

who will count
the petals from our
funeral bouquet, who will decide
where the hoops for that death
will be hung?

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